LGBTI Equal Rights Association for Western Balkans and Turkey
The report “Discrimination Against Sexual Minorities in Education and Housing: Evidence from Two Field Experiments in Serbia”, documents, for the first time, experimental evidence of discrimination against LGBTI people in access to education and housing in Serbia.
These are just two of many important steps in the life of all people, including an LGBTI person, each with unique impacts on their social and economic lives.
Despite Serbian Laws on the Prohibition of Discrimination, which include comprehensive protections for LGBTI people, evidence from these experiments suggests that discrimination exists in enrollment to primary schools and access to private rental market. Data were collected via telephone interviews in January and February 2017.
According to the survey results, 7th grade boys that were perceived to be gay were three times as likely to be refused enrolment into a primary school (even though primary education is compulsory and refusal is prohibited by law). And even when those boys were accepted into a school, they met with twice as much hesitation and delay by school administrators in accepting their enrolment.
Meanwhile, in the private rental market, 18% of same sex couples were refused apartment rentals by landlords in the survey, when no heterosexual couples were refused. And gay couples were more than three times as likely to be refused as lesbian couples.
The study contributes to the growing body of evidence on the economic dimensions of LGBTI discrimination. It provides both methodological and substantive insights which are useful far beyond the study.
Document also available in Serbian language.